Cutting To The Chase, Cutting No Ice, Cutting The Mustard

Q. My wife is constantly telling me to "cut to the chase." To what chase is she referring? It might help me to cut to it, if I knew where it were.

— Fred Richards, via email

A. That's funny; most wives tell their husbands to cut OUT the chase.

The producers and directors who made early Hollywood Westerns quickly learned that audiences soon became bored with the mundane scenes necessary to establish a movie's characters, setting and plot: you know, cowboys riding the range, washing up in the horse trough and sitting around the campfire.

So when the Western was being edited or "cut," film editors were told not to linger too long on preliminary scenes before they "cut to the chase," spliced in the climactic pursuit.

Filmmakers apparently were using the term by the end of the 1920s. A 1929 novel by screenwriter J. P. McEvoy, for instance, refers to a movie script with the repeated notation "cut to chase."

Oddly enough, it wasn't until the 1980s that "cut to the chase" became a general term meaning "Get to the point!" By then, come to think of it, we had a former Hollywood cowboy as president. Hmmm . . .

Let's chase the origins of two more "cut" phrases:

"Cuts no ice": During the 19th and early 20th centuries, when ice was needed for refrigeration, crews used large, rough-tooth handsaws to cut big blocks of ice from frozen ponds. It was hard, cold work, so workers would repair periodically to a campfire (and maybe even to a flask) to warm themselves. Their bosses, eager for the men to get back to work, would remind them — in the most genteel terms, no doubt — that these breaks "cut no ice." So today we still say that something ineffectual "cuts no ice."

"Cut the mustard": The origin of this term meaning "to meet required standards" is uncertain. Here's the most persuasive explanation: During the late 1800s, during a time when just about any concoction could be labeled "mustard," American cowboys (yes, them again) craved the genuine article, which they dubbed "the proper mustard." Soon anything that reached a high standard was said "to cut (achieve) the mustard."

Rob Kyff is a teacher and writer in West Hartford. Write to him in care of The Courant, Features Department, 285 Broad